Fabian Coulthard has topped the first 20-minute practice session at the SKYCITY Triple Crown with a 1min10.546 lap of the Hidden Valley circuit.

His Brad Jones Racing teammate Jason Bright came home third, with Holden Racing Team’s James Courtney splitting the two and just 0.02 seconds off the pace of the leader.

“We bedded brakes in the first part (of the session), put on our used tyres and away we went,” Coulthard said of the session.

He said the lack of grip experienced was typical of the circuit.

“That’s standard. We’re all in the same boat. We know where we get here it’s going to be slippery, high ambient – it’s definitely a recipe for a lot of cars to be sliding around.”

The team experimented with the fifth generation Triple Eight Race Engineering front upright at its recent Winton test day, and Coulthard acknowledged new parts were on the car.

“Seems ok, yeah. We haven’t found any time from it, just something we wanted to do earlier in the year but with the other two boys having dramas in Adelaide and at the Grand Prix the parts that were scheduled to happen for my car just got delayed. It was a time thing more than anything.

“We would have liked to have had it a bit sooner but the things that happened… put my development on the backburner.”

The Kiwi has been weaker than he would have liked in qualifying this season, but says it is difficult to know whether any developments from the team’s test would change that.

“It’s hard to know. You test on average tyres, so we won’t know until we qualify.”

Coulthard sits third in the Championship points.

Defending 2013 Champion Jamie Whincup was fourth in the first session, with Will Davison, Scott McLaughlin, Mark Winterbottom, Scott Pye, Shane van Gisbergen and Todd Kelly completing the top 10.

The inclusion of Kelly’s Nissan meant all five manufacturers featured, with Holden leading the way from the Erebus Mercedes (fifth), Volvo (sixth) and Ford (seventh and eighth).

Others to note include Craig Lowndes 17, Chaz Mostert 18, Garth Tander 21 and David Reynolds 22.

Click here for full results.

Two more practice sessions will unfold at the SKYCITY Triple Crown today ahead of tomorrow’s qualifying and two 100km races.